


the making and breaking of gods

by graveExcitement (arachnids)



Category: Homestuck
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-29
Updated: 2012-09-29
Packaged: 2017-11-15 07:14:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,133
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/524598
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arachnids/pseuds/graveExcitement
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AA: why the scale was tipped in this way between sisters<br/>AA: i cannot say!<br/>/<br/>AA: the persisting sounds said to accompany the ultimate demise of the tyrant less an arm and an eye</p>
<p>or: of sisters, and lost possibilities</p>
            </blockquote>





	the making and breaking of gods

_8r8k heads_  
  
The blood slops out to stain everything around it, just like it always does. A lowblood would’ve died by now. Vriska can only wish to be so lucky. But it’s a double-edged sword – if that was so, she would have bled to death long ago, on her own respiteblock floor, sans an eye and an arm. She has those back now, of course. Perhaps she would appreciate them more in some other circumstance, one where she wasn’t bleeding to death from wounds slowly appearing on this newly-woken body.  
  
She takes advantage of her now-wider field of vision to glance towards her left, where Terezi stands stricken with horror. Vriska’s blood pools in the cracks of the yellow cobbled street at her feet and there’s nothing Terezi can do. There are no enemies to threaten or manipulate or choke or stab. There’s only the rich scent of blueberry blood and a tentative step forward, to offer any help she could.  
  
Vriska’s rage spikes as she feels Tavros’s refusal, his terror. She had thought – had been so sure, sure that he would do this for her. Her hasty predictions – probabilities, calculations, all proved wrong, so wrong. ‘C8W8RD!’ she shrieks in her mind. Too terrified to _help_ her! And he didn’t even have the decency of being malicious in his refusal to give her a quick death. In his refusal to give her mercy.  
  
Vriska closes her eyes – there’s nothing to see here, save her cerulean swill, tainting these hallowed halls. The increased effort of manipul8tion only increases the bleeding, but that can only be to her benefit. Still, it manages to be a surprise when, somewhere between the pain and the blood and the mental screaming at Tavros, her legs falter, and a greater surprise still when she finds support in Terezi’s arms. Her knees buckle, and she and Terezi gracelessly manage to make their way to the ground.  
  
Vriska’s eyes open once more, seemingly of their own accord. She looks up at Terezi – Terezi, with her pointed red glasses, with her sharp teeth and perfect black lips. Her sharklike teeth are not on display right now, however, only a pained grimace and bitter, silent tears.  
  
If their story were a different one, perhaps Terezi would bend down for a tragic kiss. As it is, Terezi simply holds her there, and Vriska, feeling in earnest the loss of large quantities of blood, weakly reaches up to tug Terezi’s glasses away. Terezi and her eyes are revealed – what’s left of them, anyway. They are glazed scarlet orbs, and Vriska stares into them, not quite sure what she is seeking. Knowing Terezi cannot return her gaze. Knowing it was Vriska’s deeds, Vriska’s work, that made her this way. Not sure at all if she should be proud.  
  
Her own eyelids slowly lower, and a minute later, her corpse disappears, to be resurrected on the Battlefield. All that she left behind was a street tinted blue and a troll girl sitting on the curb, slowly licking the blood off her fingers and the tears off her cheeks.  
  
 _tick tock_  
  
Vriska raises her hand behind her. A mocking wave, but more importantly, an invitation. Her back beckons. It is, after all, what she deserves, what the wrought iron hand of JUST1C3 ought to demand. And Vriska is leaving it all up to Terezi. Not because dying is an interest of hers or because she trusts that her godhood will save her. No. She is gambling that Terezi can’t bring herself to kill her _(just like Tavros)_. This is not a gamble that depends on luck. This is a gamble that depends on Vriska knowing her dear sister’s mind. But that is not Vriska’s domain, it is Terezi’s. _Luck_ is Vriska’s domain, and all the luck in the world won’t save her now, because they are playing Terezi’s game.  
  
It always has been Terezi’s game, the crevices of the mind. The cascading possibilities, potential actions and reactions – they belonged to Terezi, just as the probabilities belonged to Vriska. The decisions that led to different pathways, different results – it was all cause and effect. And the logic of figuring out what caused each effect came naturally to her. Nothing, then, had truly changed, from when they were Scourge Sisters by name, save this: Cause and effect was now what she saw with her burnt out eyes. The present, the world around her – that is left to her nose and tongue. But the future (futures), she sees.  
  
But had Terezi been no Seer, Vriska would have won this particular gamble. Without the benefit of sight, Terezi’s hand falters. She cannot bring herself to lift her cane sword, and so instead just smells Vriska fly away in her creamsicle fairysuit. And sure enough, there’s the sparky, sparkly blue of that pixie trail.  
  
Vriska’s rage at seeing the corpses of Terezi and Karkat deposited at her feet is admirable. And just as her 8^8 attack finishes off the Black King, in time it defeats the Demon as well.  
  
In the moments before Vriska has the chance to flutter away, Terezi watches the rest of the vision play out. The Demon dies. Vriska, in her Mindfang spiderweb blue and black, whirls around, kneels in front of Terezi’s body. Prospit is hours gone, but Vriska still bends to press a kiss to Terezi’s blood-spattered lips. And… are those tears? They must be, Terezi determines, because Vriska wasn’t injured by her duel, and besides, that blue is just too pale to be blood –  
  
There is nothing else to see; the moment is now. At first, her hand shakes, but mercy is a luxury she cannot afford. So she slips her sword into Vriska’s spine, and if tears trail down her face, well, there is no one around to see.  
  
 _tick_  
  
(It should have worked, the gambit should have worked perfectly – it wouldn’t even require any luck, though if it did, Vriska would be all set – but the moment Vriska feels cold iron piercing through her, sees her cerulean swill coating Terezi’s precious cane sword, she knows she is wrong, so wrong.  
  
How could she be so wrong? Terezi – Terezi, her _sister_ , she would never – but quickly, Vriska is met with the realization that Terezi not only could, but would, and did.  
  
Just a bad gamble, she thinks hysterically, a bad roll of the dice. (The cold floor tells her it’s her last roll.) Coldness spreads within her, just as her blood spreads across the floor. At least, Vriska thinks fuzzily, at the very least, Terezi didn’t make her die slowly. She gave her the gift of mercy…)  
  
 _tock_  
  
Her wings give one last flutter. And if Terezi presses her face into her sister’s hair, inhales, exhales, well, there is no one alive to see.

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Round 3 of the 2012 Homestuck Shipping Olympics, though it was not used. The prompt was 'balancing act'. There's been a little editing since then.


End file.
